


Limbo

by littlehollyleaf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Pre-Slash, Purgatory, hiatus speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9241676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlehollyleaf/pseuds/littlehollyleaf
Summary: Limbo is an intermediate, transitional, or midway state or place. The perfect place to get Dean and Cas from where they are now, to where we want them to be. Starting with those three words we really,reallyneed Dean to say...





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just me playing around with Purgatory while I have the chance :) One to add to the masses.

**Limbo**

 

There's nothing special about the day when it happens. Just the typical duck and cover. Trying to find a patch of Purgatory free of danger, or failing that one where their teeth and claw companions are manageable at least.

In this last they seem to have succeeded. A small fire has been keeping the small, chittering beasts of the area at bay for hours now. Enough that Dean's knife—the sole weapon he'd been lucky enough to have on him when they made this freaky trip down the rabbit hole—is lying bloodless on his thigh, while Cas has found time to actually skewer one of the rodents ever under foot and is attempting to roast it. Dean is dubious, but meat of any kind would make a nice change to the bland, unsatisfying nuts and berries they've been living off the past few days.

Satisfied their enemies are not an immediate threat— _this time, for now_ —Dean looks to see if Cas needs any help. Maybe there's a second rat-thing kebab all set-up for him already so he can try his own hand at the barbecue. Make believe they're camping, fending for themselves through choice and not necessity, like those couple of times with Sam and Bobby when Dean was a kid.

He looks over and there's not one skewered animal but five, all skinned and neatly run through by branches snapped to almost perfectly equal length, each of them placed in a tidy line beside Cas' bent knees. Cas' face is rapt with concentration as he watches the skin of the one he's holding bubble in the flames. Despite the focus it's a calm expression, for the moment not weighted by remorse or guilt, and not cold and distant either like when he'd been fighting those dog-like things that first night—day, whatever, it's always the same eerie half-light here—and those that followed.

Dean thought Cas had freaked and run at first when he turned and found the space behind him conspicuously angel-free. But Cas had only been flying to a more strategic position, creeping up behind the circle closing in on Dean to catch the monsters unawares. He'd taken them out one by one, silently and systematically, face blank as marble. Then when it was done, mysterious angel sword back to whatever ether the guys pull the things from, he'd looked down at the bodies first without expression, then with regret, then with a familiar blinking, shuffling, trenchcoat twisting fear that had Dean grabbing him by the shoulder and dragging him away, snapping under his breath— _pull it together!_ Because fuck it, this was no time to get hysterical.

There'd been plenty more dangers since and at first Dean had welcomed them because the physical threat got Cas to focus like nothing else. Soon enough there was no more talk of bees; or of how sad it was there were no forget-me-nots growing amidst the dark, wiry grass; or what a shame there was no birdsong to lighten their journey and, by the way, did Dean know there was a breed of parrot in South America that had been proven to mimic human syntax almost perfectly, even grasping a rudimentary understanding of grammar? No, there was none of that. Only—there are six of them flanking us, get behind me or there in the trees, look out and you take the ones on the ground.

All business.

All soldier.

All angel.

After a day or two like that—brief moments of wild, unpredictable attacks interspersed with long, long stretches of stony silence, Dean found himself starting to miss Cas' random, detailed descriptions of animal anatomy and evolution. Or his babbling about the different consistencies of honey and had Dean tried it with tea, because it really was quite divine, almost as delicious as ambrosia. Sure, crap like that made Cas seem a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but it also made him _human_. Maybe forcing the guy to rein that in hadn't been such a good idea.

So Dean started talking instead.

Nonsense mostly about stuff they were passing. How the shape of the trees compared to the ones he remembered from home. What the hell the monsters they were fighting might have been before their souls got zapped down here. The things he'd give for a slice of warm, cherry pie.

He didn't bother with questions on how to get out of here. With creatures coming at them from all sides there just wasn't time. Priority number one was finding somewhere safe—if there was such a place—where they could hole up and figure everything else out later. So for now it was fight, flight, survive—and try and hold on to as much of who you were along the way.

When Cas started talking back it was haltingly at first, his eyes always on the trees and never on Dean. Like he was afraid the conversation would be too great a distraction, that he couldn't talk as well as fight and for all Dean knew maybe he couldn't. Maybe drawing Cas out of his soldier self _was_ a mistake and he'd revert back to running from conflict and leave them both at the mercy—or lack thereof—of their fellow inmates. But by that stage Dean didn't care. The loneliness of the place was driving him crazy—he needed a companion, not a machine, as handy as one set to kill might be.

But Cas hadn't been distracted. Maybe he'd got a little overexcited after the leopard-like creatures and spent hours listing every breed of cat he knew, including some that were rejected in the early days of creation, apparently. But that hadn't stopped him reacting like lightening to the moving branches they'd passed half-way through the list that turned out to be mutant snakes with fangs as large as walnuts and barbs on their scales.

Yes, his mind was still a little all over the place, but Cas could focus when he needed to. Without having to shut down completely.

That's who Dean sees now roasting dead almost-rat over a campfire—not because he needs to eat, but because Dean needs to. A soldier who's more than a soldier, who _wants_ to be more than a soldier. Someone trying so hard to find a balance between killing and caring and living and yet someone Dean knows would give up the fight without question if he thought he'd serve Dean better as a weapon than as a man.

Cas pulls the blackened animal out of the fire and blows on it, nibbles the edge and sits back to chew, eyes growing distant and thoughtful as he considers the taste and it hits Dean then. Without fanfare. Not so much a happening, in fact, as a realisation. Like he's turned round to discover the cat Cas still talks about getting sometimes crept up on him hours—days, weeks—ago and is curled up at his feet.

"It tastes like chicken," Cas deadpans, holding the stick with its crispy outer shell out to Dean, eyes a warm ocean blue and innocent. Too innocent.

During his bee-watching days Cas seemed to have picked up a lot of pop culture and Dean can no longer tell exactly when he's bullshitting or not. About the little things, anyway.

If Cas tries to lie when it matters—like when there's a pack of, oh, only one or two wolf-things, he says, teeth on lower lip, eyes averted, I'm sure I can take them myself, stay here where it's safe—Dean knows well enough. But when it's nothing of consequence, when it's not lying so much as teasing, Cas starting a game and seeing if Dean will play—then Dean doesn't know.

And that's... fun, actually. Having Cas take the lead in these moments, as well in the battlefield. Save for the odd, transparent attempts to spare Dean danger, Dean trusts Cas implicitly in a fight. Knows when to follow and obey. But outside a fight Cas is still learning how to be—how to joke, how to lead a conversation, how to tell a story. Maybe Dean hadn't seen that before, just how difficult it is for Cas, these simple, human things. But with nothing else to do Dean had to humour the guy and play along. Until he'd learnt to enjoy taking his turn in every back and forth, letting Cas set-up the situation—joke, small talk, philosophical discussion, whatever—and responding accordingly.

But is this, the cooked rat that tastes like chicken, building up to a punchline? Or is Cas just showing off his knowledge of human idiom? Normally it would make Dean smile, not knowing for sure if he was about to become the cause of a rare moment of laughter from the angel. But he's distracted, his mind mulling over something else, wondering what to do.

He takes the meat in silence, tears off a bite with his teeth.

It does, in fact, taste like chicken.

"Yeah, not bad," he mumbles.

Cas' almost-smile fades, head tilting a little. Dean has not given the response he was expecting. Too short, Dean supposes. Too disinterested. He can't help it, his mind's working on overdrive trying to decide on a course of action, heartbeat quickening with every discarded word.

"I'll cook more," Cas says quietly, reaching for another stick. Disappointed.

Seeing an opportunity, Dean grabs the stick before Cas' fingers can close on it.

"Nah, I got it," he says. "Simple enough, right? Why don't you get more of these chicken-rats? We'll have a feast."

Angels don't eat, not even in Purgatory. But sometimes Cas does. It's nice to share a meal, even if it is only nuts and leaves and—ugh—grubs. Chicken-tasting rodent will be better.

Dean glances up as he lifts the stick to the fire, meets Cas' still uncertain gaze and quirks his lips. Enough of a gesture to make Cas' expression soften. To make him nod and stand up.

"Get some more firewood while you're at it," Dean adds, turning his eyes to the fire as Cas takes a step away. "This'll burn out soon and we'll want to keep it burning if we're staying and by the way I forgive you."

It's casual enough. Dean's proud of that, considering the rate his heart is hammering. Stupid. Because what do the words matter, really? Why even bother to say them at all? It's clear to him now he forgave Cas a long time ago. As soon as he saw him alive, maybe. Maybe before. He just couldn't accept it, couldn't let himself. Because how could he? How could he just let it did go? When Cas wasn't even blood? Sam and Dad, them he _had_ to forgive, Bobby too because he'd been as much a part of Dean's childhood as either of them. But Cas—Cas was family through _choice_. And how could Dean _choose_ to forgive someone who'd hurt him so badly, so _personally?_ Because if Cas was a choice, couldn't Dean then _un-_ choose him? He'd hurt Dean and Dean's, so hadn't that made him a _bad_ choice? Someone he should change his mind about?

Except Dean sees now his mind had nothing to do with it. Yes, he'd chosen Cas. Chosen to accept him, to trust him, to _love_ him. And that's not a choice you can just undo. You don't un-love someone just because they hurt you, even those you've chosen to love.

So yeah, he gets it now.

But did he really have to _say_ it?

Is he going to have to say more?

That's half of what's making his heart race. A drumbeat to his inner monologue— _please don't say anything please don't say anything please don't say anything._ Because god knows what might happen if Cas makes him talk. Maybe he'll crack and break down like a girl. Maybe he'll snap and deny it.

He's already decided if Cas didn't hear and asks him to repeat it he'll just pretend he never said anything.

But Cas doesn't say a word.

Dean can see him out of the corner of his eye—standing stock still, his path to the woods halted.

He stands there for what feels like hours, silent and unmoving.

Then, finally, he takes a breath.

"I'll get the wood," he says, and leaves.

Dean's cooked all five rodent kebabs by the time Cas gets back. He found a large enough, flat-ish rock nearby after the first and has them laid out over it, the last couple still smoking.

Carefully, Cas places an armful of wood next to the fire. There are also five more dead rat-things on top. He kneels down and starts to skin them while Dean nibbles on one of the cooked ones. An angel blade should be too thick to skin anything, least of all something so small and delicate, but Cas must use some special mojo or something because he makes it work and has them ready in less than five minutes. He lays the bodies out on an empty part of the rock and glances up for the first time.

Their eyes meet.

"Thank you," Cas whispers, even though he's the one who's brought the food and means to cook it, not Dean.

But then, he's not talking about that, is he?

Dean waits a moment, in case Cas has more to say. He hopes not but, it's Cas' turn after all. It's up to him what he does with it. Cas only smiles a little, though, then ducks his head quickly and starts rubbing a hand over the leaves and dirt at his knees, looking for sticks suitable enough to make new skewers.

Relaxing, Dean presses a palm to the ground and leans back on it, attacking the rest of his meat with gusto.

"You know what these need?" he asks, rhetorical. A new game. "Chili sauce. And maybe a little onion. Or peppers."

"Did you know," Cas starts, casual. At ease. "The ghost chili of Nagaland is the hottest pepper in the word? It has..."

Dean lets Cas talk and smiles.


End file.
